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FCC Vote on Free Wireless White Space Spectrum Set for Election Day

Remember when all eyes were on Google as the FCC conducted an auction of 700MHz spectrum earlier this year? Remember when Verizon won big and Google did not? That news bummed out lots of folks wishing to see Google splurge on a new network of its own.

Well, the spectrum war isn’t over. There’s still the matter of what to do about unused “white space.” And mull the FCC will, on November 4. Also known as Election Day. What the verdict will be, according to Kim Dixon of Reuters, hinges on the effectiveness of media executives in combating FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s previously stated plan to do as Google, Microsoft, Motorola wish him and his fellow commissioners to.

And there’s now another chairman’s words to consider here, too, this time from John Dingell (D), the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell evidently has heeded opposition over the planned opening of spectrum that has been voiced by the likes of ABC, CBS, NBC, as well as Major League Baseball and NASCAR.

What’s more, at the start of October an opinion by Thomas W. Hazlett, former FCC chief economist and a current professor of law and economics at George Mason University, and Vernon L. Smith, Nobel Prize in the field of economics and a professor with similar title at Chapman University, presented an argument in the pages of The Wall Street Journal stating that if Google, et al., were to have their way, the airwaves would be frozen to pre-WWII terms.

Hazlett and Smith wrote that “The TV band is pathetically under-utilized. The problem is historical, but is increasingly exacerbated by the emergence of valuable new wireless technologies that are blocked due to artificial spectrum scarcity.” Meanwhile, sports leagues are said to fear “possible interference issues.” (FCC field testing showed “no major interference problems.”)

What advocates of open spectrum say they wish for is a place within the spectrum in which to operate “a new generation of wireless devices.” There is the sense that broadband could be delivered to areas of the country at lower cost than traditional distribution methods over copper or fiber would allow.

In short, it is the Free the Airwaves campaign, comprised of parties like the Wireless Innovation Alliance, the New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, and Free Press, against at a Big Media coalition and individuals - Hazlett and Smith as two examples - who feel that “government management of...white spaces is doomed to fail.” If I say so myself, November 4th is a thoroughly inconvenient time to have this contentious item up for a vote.

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